


Night Howl

by KaedeRavensdale



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Debt of the pack, Eren is the alpha, Fighting the Pale instead of the Titans, Garn - Freeform, Garn Eren, Garn and Pale are blood enemies, Humanity lives in a number of scattered fortress cities, I don't know how often this will be updated, I have so many fics already why am i posting a new one, Let's just see how this goes, Levi saved Eren's life at one point, M/M, So Eren saves Levis, The Pale are kinda like Vampires, i wanted to try something different than three walls so here it is, it will be explained more in the fic, not walls this time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 18:12:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4532178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaedeRavensdale/pseuds/KaedeRavensdale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The histories do not clearly explain why or when it happened, but at some point a number of centuries ago mankind were driven near to the brink of extinction by a race of blood sucking creatures known as pale who grew their numbers through infectious bites. Levi is sent out with his squad in an effort to extend mankind's reach beyond where their furthest cities lie and perhaps establish a new foot hold closer to the dangerous wilds of the Snow Blind Mountains, and here they encounter a horde of abnormally intelligent Pale. After being bitten during the battle Levi orders his squad members to leave him to die and report the mission back to Erwin as a failure, but what he didn't expect was that something else was lurking in the trees that night, watching him, or that it remembered the debt it had as of yet left unpaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Howl

**Author's Note:**

> Let's see how many WoW references we can pick out in this fic. I play that game too much and I'm too much in love with Frostfire Ridge for my own good.

Everything was moving in one big blurred together rush. The rush of battle, so familiar in the past, but which was now confusing terrifying and tainted red with blood. His blood. His squad, some of the best Hunters in the Scouting Regiment, had journeyed northwards on their Commander’s orders far beyond the final scattered walled in cities containing the last of Humanity into the dead forest at the foot of the towering Snow Blind Mountains in hopes of establishing a foot hold there but instead had been met with an ambush they were not prepared for. The Pale different than they’d ever encountered, no longer the vaguely human lumbering abominations but intelligent. Coordinated. Organized. And lead by something stronger, though what that was hadn’t become clear. One moment everything had been calm-dark and cold but calm-and the next thing any of them knew they’d stumbled blindly into an ambush.

 

Earlier that day…

 

            After leaving behind the fortress walls of the smallest outlying town, Shiganshina, Lance Corporal Levi and his squad had been spending their nights in the field in small provisional camps-little more than a small fire and five bed rolls spread across the ground with the stars as their ceiling-as they headed Northwards beyond the border into the Lost Lands and towards the massive Snow Blind Mountains with the temperature growing ever colder.

They’d been traveling for most of the day at that point, their horses snorting and tired as they pawed at frozen ground as storm clouds heavy with snow gathered overhead like a murder of crows, and had stopped for a moment at a still flowing stream. Not far from their position on the horizon Levi could just make out the dark, twisted forms of trees their gnarled stripped-bare branches clawing at the frigid heavens with more of the same tenacious futility that drove the Human race onwards in their fight against the Pale. Horrific, blood thirsty monsters that made up for what they lacked in intelligence in strength and in numbers; which had appeared from seemingly nowhere centuries before he had ever been born and had somehow succeeded in nearly annihilating mankind in a single night. Driving the survivors back behind the walls of their scattered fortress cities. Walls behind which their descendants still cowered to this very day.

Levi had never been one to agree with the masses ‘solution’ to their dilemma. To hide behind the walls in hopes that, some day, the Pale would simply vanish. Die out, perhaps, after being denied their only known source of food for centuries too long. He had been the first of those he’d known to jump at the chance to go beyond the walls of Mitras City in the Sina Province. To see the world as it really was. To taste freedom. He’d been the first of those he’d known to see that the Pale _hadn’t_ died out. And the only one of those he’d known to survive their first few ventures with the Regiment. He’d learned very soon that freedom tasted like blood, even when it was largely false.

He didn’t agree with hiding from their enemies, and yet now he found himself haunted. A shadow falling over his mind at the sight of the twisted tree line. His mind, his body, his very soul reeling to turn back and run as quickly as their mounts could still travel to the safety of the nearest wall. Something was _wrong_ with this place. With the uncharted solitude. The icy silence. His cobalt eyes narrowed.

“Captain, Sir!” Removing his hand from the warm neck of his mount as it continued to snort into the water, Levi turned to face the owner of the voice.

“Yes, Petra?”

The ginger haired woman was the newest addition to his squad-even if only by a month or two compared to the others-but at times he still felt that she was the best-certainly the most committed-soldier out of all of them. Kind and caring for her comrades just as he was-though admittedly she was one far more ready to show it that he would ever be, so sapped of emotion as he was after so many years spent beneath the wait of those he couldn’t save and those he himself had ordered to their deaths-she worked well with his squad, though there were times where tensions between her and Oluo were palpable mostly due to his mindless flirting, and her ability to react to a threat quickly was eclipsed only by his own.

She stood a bit further from where the rocky bank met with the water than he did, the reigns of the horse behind her held loosely in one hand, with the other three already astride their recovered steeds waiting a few yards further behind. “We’re ready to leave, Sir. There’s still an hour or so left of light; we can reasonably continue on into the forest before night fall.”

The thought of walking into those trees, of allowing darkness to fall around them, sent a shiver of cold dread the like of which he’d never felt before flooding down his spine but as lightning flashed in the clouds above them he knew they had no choice. Though they would be of only token aid now that their leaves were gone, the branches of the tightly packed trees would provide some much needed shelter from the wrath of the impending storm. Pushing away the gnawing unease in the pit of his stomach, the raven haired Captain nodded before swinging himself back up into the saddle.

“We’ll head into the trees until sunset; hopefully we’ll be able to find some form of shelter in the forest before the snow starts to fall.”

The sun had barely dipped below the horizon when the trees had suddenly come alive with the fiends, coming at them from all sides and from above in a coordinated attack the likes of which had never been heard of before. Though highly skilled soldiers, Levi and his squad had had no chance against the sheer weight of numbers on the side of the strangely intelligent Pale; skilled as he was with so many battles behind this, he knew this truth the moment he first saw them.

“Fall back!” He snarled over the cacophony of hellish screams issuing from their attackers, blades biting deep into twisted flesh and sending black blood flying. “Fall back! We can’t fight this amount of numbers but we can still outrun them!”

Wounded. Covered head to toe in both their own blood and the blood of the attacking monsters, the five soldiers had turned tail and raced back the way they’d come, their horses wading up to their necks through the crush of Pale as their blades cut down more of the beasts in order for them to get through. Petra made it out first, with Oluo right behind her and Eld and Gunther following not long after and Levi bringing up the rear; just as he made it free of the swarm one of the Pale leapt from the mob, crashing broad side into his horse and almost knocking it off its feet, talons scything as its razor sharp teeth sunk into his thigh.

Biting back a cry of pain and sending the attacker reeling back towards its fellows with a bone-crushing strike of the pommel of his right blade Levi dug his heels into his mount’s side as far as they would go; the animal screamed and rocketed forwards the catch up with the others, pulling ahead even as blood coursed freely down its side. None of them really knew in what direction they were going, their bearings having been quite thoroughly shattered in the darkness of the night and the panic brought on by the sudden ambush, but as they nightmarish howls died down and became distant where they ended up didn’t really matter. What mattered was that they got away.

Despite the cold his wound was burning, an acidic pain spreading outwards through his veins from his lain open leg. His vision was shifting in and out of focus and becoming blurry, mind hazing over as he struggled to hold his head up. Fists becoming loose around the reigns as he swooned in the saddle before yawing sharply to one side, crashing to the hard packed ground and tumbling almost head over heels from the impact as he narrowly avoided being trampled by the hooves his Squad as they came rushing up behind him.

“Captain Levi!” He could no longer differentiate their voices; sound and tone blurring together into one single monotonous strand. His broken bones and bruises received from the fall barely registered, but his chest felt tight and his mouth dry as if he hadn’t had a drop to drink in years; a thirst raging in the back of his throat which he knew, deep down, that water wouldn’t satisfy.

“Captain Levi!” Said again, slightly more urgently as Petra’s face appeared in his collapsing frame of vision, accompanied swiftly by the other three.

“He’s wounded badly!”

“We have to stop the bleeding; someone go and grab that damned horse before it spooks the others and we’re all left without a mount!”

“Don’t be stupid!” Speaking even a single word was taxing beyond belief. Suddenly, inexplicably, he was tired. Tired beyond description. Just wanted to sleep. “Leave me here; go! Those bastards are right behind us, you’re just wasting your time!”

“There’s no man left behind in Squad Levi! You’ve said that yourself hundreds of times!” Her golden eyes shown down on him with conviction. Why were they so damn stubborn. Couldn’t they see. “We can make a tourniquet quickly. Put you back on the horse and still get away.”

“Even if you manage to do that before those Pale bastards catch up with us it won’t be long before I’m right along with them trying to rip out your throats. I was bitten.”

“He’s right. It’s pointless to try and save the Captain when there’s a 95% chance that he’ll turn. Not when it puts the four of us at so much risk. Not when it’s almost assured he’ll bleed out anyway.” Thank God that one of them still had some sense; this was the reason that he’d made Eld his second in command.

“And what about the 5% chance that he isn’t infected?”

“Irrelevant.” Why were they still standing there arguing about all of this? “I’m turning; I can feel it!”

“With all due respect Captain, without medical tests you can’t know that!”

The screeches were growing closer again, his own hold on consciousness slipping further and further away. “ _We don’t have the luxury of time to argue over this!”_ his words had the bite of vipers despite his weakness. “As your superior officer and the Lance Corporal of the Scouting Regiment I _order_ you to get back on your horses and leave! Immediately! We can’t afford unnecessary losses!”

Petra’s golden eyes sparked, her own desire to disobey and help him battling viciously with her trainer to follow his orders until finally, begrudgingly, she rose to her feet. “We will come back for you, Captain Levi.”

But they’d come back too late. He knew that.

As the shadows of their horses faded away and were finally swallowed up into the night, Levi allowed himself to relax through the pain. Felt his body go limp against the packed-hard earth. Felt the cold of it begin to sink into his skin and muscles. The clouds rumbled with thunder over head as the snow at last began to fall, thick white flakes spiraling down towards the earth. An arctic wind blew through his hair as the hunting howls of the pack grew louder. Drew closer. And then went silent. Silent because they’d found their prey.

The shadows of the thick trees surrounding him on all sides shifted with the sound of crunch leaves, fluttering with close to a hundred black shapes as it came alight with soul less eyes. Watching him. Waiting for a move that he had grown too weak to make, his weapons lying useless at his sides. Then the boldest of the pale moved forwards, inching out into the open towards him on all fours. Their withered frames creaking as their hairless white skin, stretched thin over bone, all but glowed in the dim light. A flurry of quiet clicks as they communicated amongst themselves; the things were close enough that he could smell them now. An awful mix of decaying flesh and caked blood. Levi closed his eyes, beginning to silently prey to all the gods he’d never believed in that death would come before he turned. That they would eat him and that would be the end of it. A far better alternative them being forced to join the ranks of the damned.

More had joined the first, stalking forwards to surround where he lay prone in a tight circle. Close enough that he could feel the cold that they exuded as their shadows loomed over him. Claws on his skin, piercing through the fabric of his uniform as the things at last moved in for the kill.

The air around him abruptly changed as a warning cry rang out, the attentions of the gathered Pale torn away from him suddenly as they sensed something he couldn’t see. He’d fought the abominations since the moment he was old enough to do so and from the first day in training he’d been told that the Pale did not know what it was to be afraid but yet the sudden shift in their demeanor was one that he could only describe as fear and it wasn’t long before he found their terror to be contagious. Something _big_ was moving through the trees just out of sight, a dark shadow slinking low to the ground in the manor of a predator stalking its prey. The snapping of branches and crackling of disturbed brush as it drew closer. And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the noises stopped. And the silence, he soon discovered, was by far the worst. Was whatever had been causing it still there? Had it moved on?

The Pale that had sounded the alarm hissed softly, beginning to edge towards the trees. One hesitant step. Then two. It seemed to squint into the darkness for a moment before turning back to its bretheren but before it could do anything else the forest exploded and something absolutely massive erupted from the undergrowth with a blood curdling howl. Sharp teeth and jagged claws flashed in the darkness as the creature went on the attack, the Pale fleeing before it in a panic as the beast howl and snarled, eyes flaming in the darkness as blood flew flesh tore and bones broke in a flurry of primal violence. It was over in seconds, what remained of his attackers scrambling away to safety over the shredded bodies of their fellows, leaving him alone with the monster he still couldn’t clearly see.

The shadow drew closer slowly, standing tall and proud now, massive paws scrapping across the frozen ground, long pink tongue lolling out of fanged and salivating jaws caked in gore as it panted. A wind blew, pushing the full moon into a break between the clouds.

Looming over him now was a wolf twice the size of his horse, its massive head angled downwards to observe him through glowing green eyes, russet brown pelt splattered in black blood and peppered with white snow and string of fangs hanging around its neck. Recognition flooded through what remained of his conscious mind as he forced his body to move, raising a hand to twine his fingers in its thick fur. “You saved my life, shitty puppy.” How, after so many years. So many miles away. “I guess we’re even.” At last his strength gave out and everything went black.

 


End file.
